Both the award and the Chalonge school were named after the French physicist Daniel Chalonge (1895-1977), who is known for his work in experimental and theoretical astrophysics, as well as for the development of the microphotometer.

The Chalonge Medal is exclusively minted for the Chalonge school by the Monnaie de Paris, and is given for great scientific endeavours undertaken with a human face. Only eight medals have been awarded in the twenty year history of the school.

The faces of the medal were designed by the famous French artist Madeleine Pierre Quérolle, with one side depicting a portrait of Daniel Chalonge, and the other showing Orion and the Milky Way – reflected in the mirror of a telescope – above his geological namesake, Chalonge Mountain, in the French Alps.

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One hundred years ago the celebrated first Conseil de Physique Solvay took place in Brussels, with the participation of the leading physicists of the time. It marked a profound rupture between the old classical physics and the new quantum physics that described the strange behaviour of nature at the microscopic level. The conference was one of the most important events in the advent of the quantum revolution; no such physics conference since has acquired the same legendary status...